This Week in Washington – Friday, July 2, 2010
Today, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the national unemployment rate dropped slightly to 9.5 percent – still well above the 8 percent limit the Administration promised when it helped ram an ill-advised, trillion dollar stimulus package through Congress – while payrolls fell by 125,000 as short-term Census jobs ended.
This is further proof the government cannot orchestrate lasting economic growth. Propping up our economy with temporary jobs and bailouts fosters an atmosphere of uncertainty, not stability. The fact that only 83,000 private sector jobs were created in June is discouraging to say the least, and a far cry from the estimated 150,000 new jobs that experts say must be added each month to encourage growth.
This report is evidence that Washington's agenda is wrong for a true economic recovery, and I hope it serves as a much-needed wake up call to Leaders in Washington.
Follow Me on Facebook
I always try to stay up to speed on what's going on in the Sixth District. Interacting with you and hearing from you are great ways to do it. Now you can follow me on my Facebook page to see what I'm working on in Washington whenever you want. I encourage you to become a "fan" of my page and to stop by often.
This Week
On Wednesday, the House voted to approve the conference report to H.R. 4173, the Financial Regulatory Reform bill. The conference report would continue to expose taxpayers by making bailouts permanent and codifying the "too big to fail" status for select Wall Street firms. It would also make permanent the subjective standard regarding the treatment of creditors – much as we saw with the auto bailouts – by authorizing the FDIC to determine how and when creditors of a failed firm would be paid. Rather than reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the conference report would continue to finance the on-going bailouts of the failed firms at the taxpayers' expense. Lastly, the conference report would grow government and expand the reach in the marketplace by creating several new intrusive government offices, including a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a Consumer Office of Financial Research, charged with collecting data on transactions carried out by any financial company in our economy. While we all agree it is critical to restructure the regulatory oversight of our nation's financial sector to help prevent future crises, this bill was not the way to go about it. Therefore, I could not support this legislation.
On Thursday, the House passed H.R. 5618, the Restoration of Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act. The bill provides an extension of the emergency unemployment compensation program. I understand many Americans, including many Northwest Missourians, are hurting right now. The recession has affected every corner of the Sixth District. However, the version of the bill my Republican colleagues and I supported would have provided the same unemployment benefits, but offset the cost by rescinding stimulus funds. As is, the bill is unpaid for and will add a further $34 billion to the deficit.
Also on Thursday, the House passed a Fiscal Year 2010 War Funding Supplemental for Department of Defense to conduct ongoing war operations. Unfortunately, the $75 billion bill contains only $33 billion for actual war fighting. The rest of the legislation provides billions in funding for non-defense spending, including $10 billion in funding for state bailouts created in the first stimulus bill and $5 billion to bail out the current Pell Grant program which was also expanded in the stimulus. The bill also includes nearly $3 billion for disaster assistance, mostly for Haiti. All told, the legislation will still add more than $60 billion to the deficit. Our troops are currently fighting two wars. They should be provided with exactly what they need to execute their missions, and legislation funding our soldiers should not be hijacked by more deficit spending on unrelated issues.
As part of the supplemental, House Leaders used a procedural slight of hand to pass a $1.12 trillion one-year budget enforcement resolution. The resolution provides an increase of more than $31 billion over than this year's spending, despite the president's pledge to freeze non-defense dictionary spending for three years. By using this tactic, leaders avoided introducing or debating a comprehensive budget for the 2011 fiscal year. This resolution does not set spending priorities for the federal government, and it does not project federal spending, revenues and deficits over the next five years. This represents the first time since the passage of the Budget Act of 1974 that the House will not pass an actual budget. Congress still holds the purse strings. If it can't budget, it can't govern properly. I believe this procedural maneuver represents a failure to lead.
The House will be not in session next week due to the July 4th district work period. Have a great holiday weekend.
Sincerely,
